HomeGrown Live Music Festival

The HomeGrown Live Music Festival is happening on Saturday, May 6, 2023.

Following last year’s successful but scaled-back festival (and a small virtual festival in 2021), the HomeGrown Live board of directors is pleased to announce that the 2023 HomeGrown Live Music Festival will be returning in its full form. It’s also our 15th anniversary!

The HomeGrown Live Music Festival is about encouraging, developing, and celebrating local live music while raising funds for Joe’s M.I.L.L. to help nurture the love of making music. Following several challenging years for Kingston’s music economy that saw the permanent closure of some live music venues, and the hiatus of live music altogether, we want to celebrate the richness and diversity of local music that we are tremendously privileged to still have in Kingston.

Call for Submissions

While the complete list of participating live music venues for 2023’s festival is still being finalized, performer applications are open now until March 8, 2023.

Kingston-based bands and artists wishing to volunteer a live performance for this year’s festival can now apply online here.

We can’t wait to see you on May 6!

The HomeGrown Board

Moira Demorest, Rob Howard, Chris Morris, Tom Stewart, Joel Yearsley

Homegrown Live Music Festival is happening on Saturday, May 7, 2022. After several years of “start and stop”, a launch of a small virtual festival in 2021, and a limited concert series in 2021/22, the Homegrown Live Productions Board of Directors has decided it needs to pivot once again. Homegrown Live is about encouraging, developing, and celebrating local live music while raising funds for Joe’s M.I.L.L. to help nurture the love of making music. As a community of live music lovers, we have been traumatized by COVID. We have lost venues, entertainment and hospitality careers have been lost or sidelined, and even though, as of this writing, many pandemic restrictions are being lifted, there is still a lot of hesitancy about going out and mingling in large crowds. The uncertainty and fear seem pervasive and it is hard to just shake it off. At the same time, it feels like there is a craving for the return of live music that wells up in our hearts, like anticipating the return of a long-lost friend. We want to celebrate!

Recognizing all this, the Board has decided that we can’t simply return to the “full Monty” festival of years past and has developed a more cautious approach. We are going to have far fewer venues, with a focus on some larger ones, spread out geographically to give people lots of space and to discourage intermingling between the venues, as is traditionally part of Homegrown. The venues for 2022 are The Hotel on Wolfe Island, The Mansion, Blu Martini, and Overtime Sports Bar. The schedule will be reduced, and the venue coordinators will be asked to create more genre-diverse productions at each venue. There will be no all-access bracelets, but rather a $10 cover at each venue. Performer applications are open now until March 25, 2022.

Our selection criteria will be based on:

• Encouraging a diversity of participants and genres
• Priority given to new collaborations, new creations, or original music.
• Producing an entertaining and quality show

The Board believes that this is the best approach for this year, but we are planning to return to the full format multi-venue Homegrown Live Music Festival in spring of 2023. We can hardly wait to hear the music!

The Homegrown Board

Chris Morris, Joel Yearsley, Tom Stewart